Garlic Chicken

When Victor got back from the gym, this morning, he casually said, oh, by the way… I’m cooking dinner, tonight.

That is always music to my ears. I am a firm believer in if you’re cooking, I’m eating – and it really is nice when the person cooking knows what in the heck they’re doing!

Both of us are intuitive cooks – we just kinda know what works and what doesn’t. It usually means reading a recipe and being able to alter ingredients as you’re going down the list. My mom used to talk about reading a recipe and mentally tasting it as she read it. That really makes a lot of sense to me.

Victor wanted to do something non-Italian, tonight. We both tend to go Italian as a go-to, although back in the day, my go-to was always Mexican. I conceded defeat when we first moved east and I couldn’t find basic Mexican ingredients in the grocery store. (For the first 8 years we lived here, we would bring cans of chipotles in adobo back with us every time we traveled west.) Ingredient-wise, things have gotten much better, but the go-to Italian is still the go-to because I’ve gotten lazy.

He had an idea for something spicy with garlic and honey – and asked if we had any chicken breasts in the freezer. I grabbed one for him and walked away – seeing the wheels turning.

What he ended up with was something worthy of any decent Chinese restaurant – simple with clean flavors.

Chicken with Honey and Garlic

  • 1 chicken breast, cubed
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 2 tbsp rice wine
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
  • 1 cup broccoli, cooked
  • 1 tbsp sambal oelek
  • black sesame seeds
  • natural sesame seeds
  • flour
  • salt and pepper

Dice chicken. Dredge in flour mixed with a pinch of salt & pepper.

Make a sauce of the honey, rice wine, soy sauce, and sambal oelek.

Saute chicken in a bit of oil. Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant – 2 or 3 minutes.,

Add sauce and simmer until thickened. Add broccoli and mix well.

Serve with rice and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

For an Italian, it was a pretty good rendition of Asian-American cooking. My stomach is smiling!